Where’s that “global warming” when you really want it? 😉
This map from NOAA’s National Snow Analyses page shows the snow depth data:
![nsm_depth_2012122605_National[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/nsm_depth_2012122605_national1.jpg?quality=83)
Source: http://www.nohrsc.noaa.gov/nsa/
Automated Model Discussion:
December 26, 2012
| Area Covered By Snow: | 61.4% |
| Area Covered Last Month: | 18.6% |
| Snow Depth | |
|---|---|
| Average: | 5.1 in |
| Minimum: | 0.0 in |
| Maximum: | 1351.5 in |
| Std. Dev.: | 10.6 in |
| Snow Water Equivalent | |
| Average: | 0.9 in |
| Minimum: | 0.0 in |
| Maximum: | 650.5 in |
| Std. Dev.: | 2.4 in |
This is a perfect time to recall climate researcher Dr. David Viner’s famous missive from back in the year 2000:
However, the warming is so far manifesting itself more in winters which are less cold than in much hotter summers. According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”.
“Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,” he said.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-724017.html
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One would think that such a change in albedo would cause some sort of deep freeze, but that never seems to happen. I don’t think albedo has all that much of an effect.
Some years the benchmark is a warmer globe, others it’s a warmer USA. If you look hard enough you can always locate a new record of sometype somewhere. Try this. Try keeping the target the same each year, and we “too dense to breath on our own” will give you more credibility.
John F. Hultquist says:
December 26, 2012 at 6:01 pm
Simon says “I hear . . . ”
Did not someone calculate that 2012 could NOT be a record year? I read that! Don’t remember where. Maybe Simon can’t remember where he heard that it would be.
On the other hand, I copied a statement from the UK MET office with a forecast for 2013: They claim it will be between 0.43 degrees C and 0.71 degrees C warmer than the long-term global average.
As for the first statement, I said that often, however I was clear that I was talking globally at the time. If this is what you remember, I cannot be sure. But here are the latest global numbers:
2012 in Perspective so far on Six Data Sets
Note the bolded numbers for each data set where the lower bolded number is the highest anomaly recorded so far in 2012 and the higher one is the all time record so far. There is no comparison.
With the UAH anomaly for November at 0.281, the average for the first eleven months of the year is (-0.134 -0.135 + 0.051 + 0.232 + 0.179 + 0.235 + 0.130 + 0.208 + 0.339 + 0.333 + 0.281)/11 = 0.156. This would rank 9th if it stayed this way. 1998 was the warmest at 0.42. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in April of 1998 when it reached 0.66. The anomaly in 2011 was 0.132.
With the GISS anomaly for November at 0.68, the average for the first eleven months of the year is (0.32 + 0.37 + 0.45 + 0.54 + 0.67 + 0.56 + 0.46 + 0.58 + 0.62 + 0.68 + 0.68)/11 = 0.54. This would rank 9th if it stayed this way. 2010 was the warmest at 0.63. The highest ever monthly anomalies were in March of 2002 and January of 2007 when it reached 0.89. The anomaly in 2011 was 0.514.
With the Hadcrut3 anomaly for November at 0.480, the average for the first eleven months of the year is (0.217 + 0.194 + 0.305 + 0.481 + 0.473 + 0.477 + 0.445 + 0.512+ 0.514 + 0.491 + 0.480)/11 = 0.417. This would rank 9th if it stayed this way. 1998 was the warmest at 0.548. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in February of 1998 when it reached 0.756. One has to back to the 1940s to find the previous time that a Hadcrut3 record was not beaten in 10 years or less. The anomaly in 2011 was 0.340.
With the sea surface anomaly for October at 0.428, the average for the first ten months of the year is (0.203 + 0.230 + 0.241 + 0.292 + 0.339 + 0.351 + 0.385 + 0.440 + 0.449 + 0.428)/10 = 0.336. This would rank 9th if it stayed this way. 1998 was the warmest at 0.451. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in August of 1998 when it reached 0.555. The anomaly in 2011 was 0.273.
With the RSS anomaly for November at 0.195, the average for the first eleven months of the year is (-0.060 -0.123 + 0.071 + 0.330 + 0.231 + 0.337 + 0.290 + 0.255 + 0.383 + 0.294 + 0.195)/11 = 0.200. This would rank 11th if it stayed this way. 1998 was the warmest at 0.55. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in April of 1998 when it reached 0.857. The anomaly in 2011 was 0.147.
With the Hadcrut4 anomaly for November at 0.512, the average for the first eleven months of the year is (0.288 + 0.208 + 0.339 + 0.525 + 0.531 + 0.506 + 0.470 + 0.532 + 0.515 + 0.524 + 0.512)/11 = 0.45. This would rank 9th if it stayed this way. 2010 was the warmest at 0.54. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in January of 2007 when it reached 0.818. The anomaly in 2011 was 0.399.
On all six of the above data sets, a record is out of reach.
If you would like to see the above month to month changes illustrated graphically, see:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:2012/plot/gistemp/from:2012/plot/uah/from:2012/plot/rss/from:2012/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2012/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2012/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2012
Now as for the latest forecast of up to 0.71 C, in my opinion, this cannot even be close! The ENSO number is down to almost 0. Depending on which data set you go by, it is either -0.119 or + 0.05 and heading down. Even if it should turn around tomorrow and become a “1998 El Nino”, it would take a few months to get that high, and if it ever did get that high, it would take more months to affect global temperatures. At 0.71, it would smash the present record 2010 average of 0.54.
I understand davidmhoffer’s explanation, but 2009-2010 here in the high plains was snow covered all the way to May when…it just kept knowing. It was the first week in June before I saw any flax blooming. 2011-2012. Not an inch of snow all spring and summer was upon us by May.
All that man-made CO2’s has made a big difference now? 16 years and no warming.
So why exactly are the rich nations giving their wealth away again? Remind me – it’s to keep warmer but poorer countries …?
Kevin Kilty says:
I understand davidmhoffer’s explanation, but 2009-2010 here in the high plains was snow covered all the way to May when…it just kept knowing. It was the first week in June before I saw any flax blooming. 2011-2012. Not an inch of snow all spring and summer was upon us by May.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Yeah, I remember years like both of the ones you describe above. They seemed to be the exceptions rather than the rule based on my recollection (and that of old farmers). But that’s why we have to go back to the data at some point and see if the correlation is there or not.
Michael Palmer says:
Interesting observations on the inverse correlation of snow cover and length of winter. One wonders, though, if the local and the global effects of the snow cover may be different? The snow cover may locally keep the ground warm, but globally cause heat loss due to increased reflection of visible light into space.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
My initial reaction was no, my thinking being that 1 inch of snow is white and 6 feet of snow is also white. But then I figured snow gets dirty over the course of a winter, so successive layers of snow would be whiter than one or two small snowfalls. Then there’s additional runoff which discharges colder water into lakes and oceans that might otherwise be warmer. For oceans, that implies a change in salinity in the vicinity of the river mouth. For lakes, particularly acidic lakes like those found surrounded by pine forests, there would be a change in acidity. At which point my head begins to hurt.
For what it’s worth, When I was a kid growing up in Dallas, (80’s and early 90’s), I loved snow and we usually got some 1-3 times per winter. I had 3 ‘snow dreams’, if you will.
1) To have a White Christmas
2) To have snow which stuck around for more than 1-2 days
3) To have more than a few inches (like maybe a foot of snow or more on one day).
In the first 25 years of my life (up until 2009), none of these happened.
Now, in just the past 3-4 years, the DFW metroplex has had 2 White Christmases (this year and 09 — I believe or maybe 10), we had a storm come in that dropped a record 14 inches of snow in 24 hours, and during the Super Bowl week 2011, we had the longest period I can recall with temperatures below freezing and snow/ice on the ground for about a week straight. We had a pretty sizeable drainage pond near my house completely frozen over. Needless to say, the last 3-4 winters have been interesting for a snow lover such as myself.
Don’t know about elsewhere in the Lower 48, but the upper Midwest usually, but not always, has its first big winter storm within a week of the winter solstice. Then, usually, comes a thaw in early January before the serious cold sets in. Doesn’t happen exactly that way every year. After all, weather is a chaotic system, but the general pattern repeats over time. This year the first big snow hit a few days before the solstice. Another approaches but will track south of us. I hope.
Another observational confirmation of your correlation to snow cover. I used to work with a guy that was the maintenance supervisor for a construction company and remember a particularly cold and snow less winter here in the Denver Metro area, where he was complaining about the lack of snow cover and how much time he was spending repairing construction equipment that was getting torn up digging is hard frozen ground. When they had some snow cover the freeze depth was fairly shallow but this year the ground was like soft concrete to about 18 inches or so where he was working and all they were doing was putting new teeth on the buckets of the back hoes and fixing things that got broken due to how hard the ground was.
Snow cover definitely changes the effective heat sink capacity of the soil, and deeply frozen soil will take a lot longer to warm up to a temperature suitable for seed germination.
You might also cross reference the snow cover to soil temperature records that the agricultural folks keep to determine best time to plant each years crop so the seeds will germinate. The soil temperature as they measure it would be a much more objective measure of “when spring came” in a given local area.
You would also need to include information about both snow cover and snow depth (and perhaps water content) though to get a good measure of hits insulation of the soil.
Larry
@ur momisugly Other Andy
I do take the figures from our Very Wonderful BOM with a grain or two of salt, but nonetheless I have noticed that when there is snow in the Northern Hemisphere, it is warm here in Brisbane, and when it cools down a bit here, they start getting warm weather. This happens every year! I’m sure it is absolute PROOF of Global Warming. I’m just not quite sure how.
@David
There must be a name for this particular trap that you just fell into, hurting your head 😉 but good point about distinguishing thin and thick snow cover. If the cover is so thin that it doesn’t retain heat in the soil, its dominant effect should be negative feedback; thus, the question whether reflection or insulation is dominant applies specifically to thick snow cover vs no snow cover. I’ll try to figure it out myself, too.
@henrythethird:
But but but I talk about Marble Bar! :
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2010/04/03/mysterious-marble-bar/
Then again, I’m not a ‘climate scientist’…
Thank Heavens! 😉
@roger Knights:
What to bet that it’s the warmest ever in their data, but not in the historical record of records?
Adjusted in the aggregate but not into individual record territory…
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/v1vsv3/
Hum?. Mr Mosher sure likes to engage in hit and runs. I keep thinking he could really add to a conversation, but I keep feeling that he thinks his thoughts to superior to engage in actual dialogue.
At any rate, beyond Willis challenge. I find it curious that in 2007 (a record low year for N.H. sea ice)Mamoth Mountain, (a good gague for Sierra snowfall), had less then 300 inches that year. In 2010-11, when the arctic had a great deal more ice, Mammoth had almost 700 inches of snow, a record.
http://www.mammothmountain.com/Mountain/Conditions/SnowConditions/HistoricalSnowfall.aspx
Please don’t shame Harris too much. I enjoyed the comic relief after 5 hours of driving through snow to return home after the holidays.
Responding to the part in bold: It *does* seem to at 33 degrees latitude … if I can sweep enough snow off the car or driveway to show some paint or concrete even with an air temperature of 27 degrees F the car and driveway will ‘clear’ themselves (as the roads do with some traffic to create ruts through which the sun penetrates and melts the snow) … were they left covered they remain covered, not able to warm the air they come in contact with by even ‘one’ iota …
.
@RoHa
With here you mean Brisbane.
Does it ever get cold in Brisbane…?
Remember this?
http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/summer-snow-on-the-mountains-as-australia-swelters/story-e6frfq80-1226530434009
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-12/snow-falling-across-eastern-australia/4308904
In previous post….
cols = cold
And let’s not forget what fuel-poverty and cold results in: people burning all manner of materials in their fireplaces for warmth!
Think I can take a walk in fresh, crisp, clean air just a day after 4 inches of snow fell north of Dallas Texas? Guess again .. I have to hold my breath if I go outside and the wind happens to come from certain directions … WE DID NOT HAVE THIS GOING EXC IN THE PAST FEW YEARS!!
.
I really like this website but I kind of get dismayed when people belittle somebody like Shane Harris or Simon. I always think that sort of behavior is what we can expect over at Skeptical Science, In most cases WUWT does take the high road and simply “Gives us the facts, Mam”. If the idea is to win the hearts and minds of the people who have creeping doubts, then showering them with abuse certainly isn’t going to win many converts, no matter how good it makes us feel. If somebody is reading this web page, they probably have some doubts about AGW hysteria. If they throw out some trial balloons to see what sort of response they get from WUWT readers and that response is innuendo that they are a moron, well that is another potential convert lost. It seems to me that Kev in UKs response to Simon was exactly wrong. I would think that the more people like Shane and Simon who read this blog, the better. It is so easy to respond to their points in a factual way, with perhaps just a hint of sarcasm, that we shouldn’t feel at all threatened by their comments. So I don’t know, Kev in UK, lighten up a bit. Simon was mouthing an oft repeated mantra and he needed education, not to be told to take a hike.
According to State of the Climate Global Snow & Ice November 2012: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global-snow/2012/11 “The Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent during November 2012 was above-average, ranking as the fifth largest on record for the month, and marked the fourth consecutive November with above-average snow cover for the hemisphere.” ….. Does that make it a little less “weather” and a little more trend? Time will tell I guess. Oct report read pretty much the same, I cant wait to see December’s report 🙂 🙂
Here in Wales it has been raining with a few short breaks since last February. No snow yet Apart from the impact on the wellbeing of Welsh citizens, it caused huge damage to our housing and countryside. After 10 months it still maybe weather, but it is by far the wettest year on record . There is something going on, maybe not what was predicted, but it is pretty awful all the same. Have a good New Year and hopefully a dry one.
In Australia the BOM { your MET] do not give out stock weather warnings regarding snow levels any more as it is not wet tell that to the sheep what a joke
Ah yes, No Snow Viner another co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007
http://www.mottmac.com/newsandpublications/newslist/?id=294066
Where’s that “global warming” when you really want it? 😉
————
Here:
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/awap/temp/index.jsp
;-)))))))
It is so obvious that most of you have over indulged this Christmas. Please come back with enhanced sobriety in the New Year and be nicer to the warmists. They have a long cold climb down ahead. Don’t push them, just give them a gentle helping hand.